Handing Over (II)

You’ve been told not to hold the stray cats
                  with fleas. Always change your

shirt if you do. Maddie is a campus cat,
                  my tan and white diva of floof (yes, floof)

with ivory strands three inches long, the Gerber
                  Baby of Fancy Feast. She runs to

my car when I arrive so that I lean my face
                  out the window and tell her to move,

let me crawl a centimeter closer in the drive.
                  Her tail is raised, her tiny face tilted,

waiting there on the street she should never
                  call home. She should be in a home, but

none here are safe for a fair princess like her.
                  Hair like cotton on the edge of the stem,

twisted, pulled, and teased to a shroud wrapped
                  around bones and a purr that echoes, that

despite knowing better, to not get attached, I
                  cannot protect. Are the ones we hold

closest not the ones we never should have?
                  Our secret joys, so simple, so addicting, such

fundamental feelings which drag our hearts higher
                  in our ribcage bars, like an air

balloon at a fair that knows it must land
                  but refuses to pull on the cords,

and takes guesses instead on how far it can soar.